Prompt Post: ROUND EIGHT
ROUND EIGHT IS CLOSED
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<< ROUND SEVEN | ALL ROUNDS | ROUND NINE >>
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Close, but not quite.
They make it a night-time assault. It’s not so hard when you have people who can climb walls, fuse wiring and, when all else fails, just blast things apart.
Erik hangs back to secure the perimeter before following the rest in. By the time he’s got the gates neatly bound up and the wire fence turned into razor-sharp strands, Charles already has a row of CIA guards standing in a silent line.
‘And you will obey any request from me or my friends here,’ Charles tells them, hand pressed firmly to his temple. ‘Erik, I think I’ve got a hold on every mind in the building now. I’ll take Hank and Raven and go after the mutants. You and Alex can destroy Cerebro and any spare parts they have in storage.’
Erik nods and motions to Alex as Charles and the other scuttle off down a corridor. ‘Cerebro first,’ he says, ‘then we’ll find the store rooms, and blow up the labs while we’re at it.’
‘Sounds good,’ Alex says. ‘Where do we go?’
Erik turns to first guard in the row. ‘You, where’s Cerebro? Take us there.’
‘This way, schnookums,’ the guard says.
Erik freezes.
Alex’s lip twitches. ‘Ahem. Looks like the Prof put a little more of himself into this one than usual,’ he says carefully.
He’s not laughing. Not quite. Luckily for him, Erik thinks, because otherwise he’d be impaled on a letter opener.
Alex catches his eye and suddenly looks rather less amused. ‘Look, forget about it, I didn’t hear a thing.’
‘Good,’ Erik says coldly. ‘Let’s go. And if we need any other information, you’re doing the talking.’
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Charles finishes scribbling on the blackboard and comes to sit on the desk. ‘Right, good morning everyone. This, as you know, is Ethics, and Erik’s going to be helping with our discussion, aren’t you, poppet?’
There’s a rustling of papers.
Today we’ll be discussing the question, “can it be morally acceptable to kill?”’ Charles says.
‘And the answer is yes,’ Erik puts in.
‘Can we have a discussion, please, huggybear? That’s rather the point.’
Erik grits his teeth.
Pencils scribble.
They do eventually manage to have a discussion, interspersed with a smattering of terms of endearment. Erik’s rather getting into the thing, though his diatribe on moral responsibility is cut off abruptly by Charles announcing, ‘Pumpkin, you’re talking out of your arse.’
There are surprisingly few sniggers.
Then, on Charles’s first ‘sweetheart’ of the class, Sean suddenly makes a little yelping noise. He swallows it hurriedly, but there’s an immediate sense of disappointment from everyone else. Notebooks droop. Erik looks at them with deep suspicion.
‘Well,’ Charles says, sensing the sudden drop in attentiveness, ‘I think that will do for today. Essays on my desk by Monday, please.’
He turns to go. Erik leans by the door as the children file out. As Sean passes he snags him by the collar. The others scatter hastily.
‘Show me,’ Erik says dangerously.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Sean squeaks.
Erik snatches the notebook from his hands and unfolds the piece of paper that tumbles out of it. It’s a grid, with a word written neatly in each square. Several are crossed out. There is, in fact, a row of crosses from one side to the other.
‘You know my views on the moral acceptability of murder, don’t you, Sean?’ Erik asks.
Sean nods.
‘Do you think I consider myself justified in this case?’
Sean swallows, looking round desperately for help. ‘Um, probably?’
Erik smiles. ‘Bingo,’ he says.
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‘What do you want?’ Erik asks.
They glance at each other. ‘It’s the names,’ Raven admits. ‘The terrible, terrible names that Charles calls you, the ones that make me ashamed to be his brother.’
Erik glares at her. ‘How is that any of your business?’
‘We want to help,’ Hank says earnestly. ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t do it if he knew how much it embarrassed you.’
‘Yeah, Erik,’ Raven says. Can’t you do something about it? Look, just tell him to stop.’
‘No,’ he snaps. ‘Bugger off, both of you.’
‘Why not?’ Raven whines.
Well, for a start, Erik thinks, he might actually stop. He remembers Charles’s hand on his hair and his fond, Go back to sleep, cootchie-pie.
Nobody else has ever called him cootchie-pie. Or snugglebunny. Or groovy-genes. Or neato Magneto.
‘It’s not good for your image,’ Raven says. ‘Also, it’s not good for our sanity. I caught Alex trying to wash his own ears out after the ‘tasty-toes’ incident.'
‘He shouldn’t have been listening,’ Erik says gruffly.
‘You were teaching a freaking class, Erik. You were standing there in front of half-a-dozen kids, he was meant to be listening to you.’
Just then Charles pokes his head around the door. Raven and Hank spin around guiltily.
‘There you are, Raven,’ Charles says, ‘Jean’s looking for you. She said something about modelling haircuts for her.’
‘Yeah, thanks, in a minute,’ Raven says.
Charles looks from face to face and frowns. ‘Are you arguing?’ he asks. ‘I don’t mean to pry, but there’s a definite sense of tension from all of you.’ He ambles over to Erik and slips an arm around his waist. ‘Hello you great big lump of love,’ he says. ‘I missed you.’
Behind Charles’s back, Raven theatrically sticks a finger down her throat. Cheeky brat. Erik meets her eyes and gives her his best sadistic smile.
He squeezes Charles gently. ‘Hello my little Apfelstrudel,’ he says, and watches Raven’s face take on an expression of utter horror.
What the hell. If you can’t beat them, might as well join them.
He’ll keep ‘Professor Sex’ for the bedroom, though.
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*nods*
Good show nonnie. Good Show.
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And I love the little angsty-sweetness of Erik secretly liking having someone calling him by endearing nicknames. <3
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I AM CONVINCE YOU ARE A GENIUS AMONG US! With the exceptional Doctor Who fic, and then Kitty crack! and then THIS! i ♥ u.
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Still, glad this one made people smile :D
I promise there will be more Doctor Who at some stage... another 30,000 words and we might get to the part you actually requested. And look, I am growing as a livejournaler (journalist?), I have more than one icon!
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And fyi: Groovy-genes? Neato Magneto? Genius, pure genius.
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